Address by the Grand Jury of North Carolina to George II, King of Great Britain

Lovick, John, d. 1733; Et Al.

April 01,
1731

Volume 03, Pages 134-135

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[B. P. R. O. Am. & W. Ind. Vol. 22. P. 108.]

To the Kings most Excellent Majesty

The Humble address of the Grand Jury for the whole Province of North Carolina now met at Edenton April the first 1731.

This being the first Grand Jury called since the Publishing your Royal Commission for the Government of this Province We with the greatest Pleasure Embrace the occasion to assure your Majesty that we are a People devoted to your Royal Person and Illustrious Family and that nothing could be more joyfully received than the certain news of our being immediately under the Government & direction of so mild, so just, & so indulgent a Prince, whose Glory is the Ease & Happiness of his People, whose remotest Regions feel the Influence & are made happy under it and whom no Distance can separate from the Good & Welfare of His Subjects.

We beg leave with hearts full of gratitude and Duty to acknowledge your Majesties most Transcendant Goodness in that Tenderness & Care shewn for the Ease & benefit of the People and preserving our Rights & Liberties in those Instructions the Governor has been pleased to Declare. You have made the rule of his Government here, and we cannot but look upon it a very great instance of your Favour, the sending us a Gentleman for our Governor, so thoroughly acquainted with the State and Condition of this your Majesties Province which will Enable him to surmount many Difficulties that upon so great a Change of the Government must have been Insuperable to a Stranger. And we have the comfort & Pleasure to say we have already seen such instances of his mildness and Generous Treatment and even of his humanity and Tenderness to all sorts of People that we are persuaded he makes your Majestys exalted virtues his Pattern in Government, than which we cannot have a greater Blessing.

His Excellencys great Impartiality in the Administration of Justice gives us the firmest Assurance of enjoying the benefit of our Laws and seeing Peace & order revive amongst us, and the generous Example he has sett in forgetting all Private differances we doubt not will have that happy Effect as to put an end to all heats & animositys amongst ourselves that we may have no other strife but who shall be most Loyall & obedient and the truest friends to their poor Country almost worn out with its own Disorders and the weakness of the Proprietory Government, but

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we now please ourselves with the thoughts that our Country will again Flourish, our Trade increase and your Majesties Dominions will be enlarged by a Growing Colony.

The New Settlement which our Governor at a very great Expence and Personal trouble some years since laid the Foundation of at Cape Fear will we hope encrease & become a great benefit to the whole Province. There are several matters we should have presumed to have represented to your Majesty in whose favour we rest for granting whatever may contribute to the prosperity of this your Colony, but our General Assembly being to meet very suddenly we shall leave it to them to lay such things before your Majesty as may be wanting for our Country. We have only to Repeat our Assurance of our most Profound Duty and Loyalty to your Majesty and of our utmost Care in our Stations of suppressing all Vice & Irregularity amongst us, which we think is the best means of obtaining the Blessing of Almighty God to whom we shall always pray that our most glorious King and Queen may long Reign over us. We are

Sacred Sir

Your Majesties most Dutiful most Loyall & most Obedient Servants and Subjects